All Permanent Residents Pilots ... stand up and say hello!

Having seen the disgraceful display at the convention today, in which
AOPA's Phil Boyer described Mr. Stone (TSA Administrator) as a friend
to general aviation, expressed his support for him keeping his job as
long as possible, provided him with a public platform and finally
orchestrated a standing ovation for him, I think it's fair to assume
that AOPA has shown that it is a paper tiger that won't even embarrass
- never mind actively oppose - the unelected official responsible for
the biggest successful regulatory attack on general aviation in living
memory. With AOPA unwilling to make a fuss and FAA mysteriously
entirely absent from the debate, it will now be perfectly clear to TSA
that there will be no effective opposition to any other lunacy it
chooses to implement - and certainly there will be nothing stopping
TSA from making the lives of resident alien pilots miserable or
impossible.

All of this follows yesterday's slap in the face by TSA, which only
partially postponed the implementation of the rule, and continues the
distinction between resident aliens (who have already been thoroughly
vetted by DHS) and natural born U.S. Citizens (who generally have
not). With friends like Mr. Stone, general aviation hardly needs
enemies.

I'm afraid AOPA has "gone native" in Washington.

It's sad.

AOPA was actually very effective on this.

Congress created the basic requirement. TSA then went way overboard in the
implementation but was quite responsive to the AOPA's input in rolling it
back about as far as they could without getting congress to change the
recently passed law.

Give AOPA big points for getting Stone to the convention and Stone for
going. Things get done by having access and making friends with those who
have the power to change things. Sure, the situation is still a mess but
it's much better than it could have been. Doing the warm fuzzy with Stone
after the gains just made is a lot more productive than making him an enemy.
You can be sure Stone will be taking Boyer's phone calls in the future.
Next time, maybe he'll even try to save the flap they have just been through
and seek some advice from AOPA first. I see this as a big breakthrough even
though it didn't make the whole alien rule disappear.

The real problems start with the laws being passed in an environment where
any attempt to inject reason is seen as weakness and being "soft" on
terrorism. You can bet that anyone who pointed out in congress that this
requirement was silly would have his opponent telling the voters next
election that he didn't care if they got crop dusted with anthrax in their
sleep.

For real relief from this kind of thing, the voters have to start sending
people to congress who have the character not to panic and pander like
sheep. Since voters refuse to read any more and 99% vote on the basis of
the attack ads they see during TV commercial breaks, most seat are going to
go to the candidate that can raise the most money. If you look at business,
you'll see that money generally doesn't flow to the ones run with the most
honesty and integrity.

At least we have the government we deserve.

--

Roger Long

Hi Roger,

My understanding is that the Chairman of the House Aviation
Subcommittee wrote a letter to Mr. Stone explaining that he and his
organization had gone way beyond the Congressional intent, which
expressly related to aircraft weighing more than 12,500 lbs. Although
that may not have been what the law said in writing, Congressional
intent is part of the law. Also, I'm sure Congress left the
implementation details to TSA, and it's the details that have so many
of us upset, not the idea of adding genuine security.

TSA seems to have rolled back implementation just enough to avoid
getting smacked by said Chairman, and did it a day late, presumably to
make a point. AOPA was pretty upset at what amounted to a display of
raw arrogant power by TSA, and made that fairly clear on the web site.
Phil Boyer certainly made it sound like he was upset.

What happened the next day was rather dismal. If that's how you treat
someone who demonstrates how little he thinks of AOPA's concerns, how
can we show gratitude to our friends, for heaven's sake? And there's
a bigger problem: how many officials do you think are going to care
much what Phil Boyer says to them now, when someone who has dissed him
publicly gets a standing ovation from our members? That was a huge
mistake.

I think Stone showed up, by the way, because he was literally unaware
of the issue: that's what happens when you don't listen. He evidently
said as much on a number of occasions, when asked about various
issues.

I'm not suggesting he should have been embarrassed in public. I'm
suggesting he should have been disinvited as being an inappropriate
speaker, given our current organizational conflicts of interest
(even/especially if he's unaware of it), until such time as his
organization actually listens to ours. If he doesn't plan to listen,
we should start making his life miserable (tit for tat, classic game
theory). He actually stood up there and said he takes input from
AOPA: does anyone seriously think AOPA didn't tell him, on Day 1, that
he was out of his mind on this one? He's not aware of it: therefore,
he didn't ask, or if he asked it was purely to placate AOPA and he
didn't actually listen to the answer.

I'm not particularly opposed to adding some security to flight
training. I think a bunch of sensible suggestions (even one or two of
the things actually in this rule) could have been implemented with FAA
and AOPA helping.

But we needed Phil to get this guy's attention, to kick his butt, not
kiss it.

And no, I'm not at all sure he'll be taking Phil's calls in the
futu it didn't hurt him to ignore them this time, after all. Phil
had to burn major political capital to get this guy to listen a
little, and you can bet he'll stonewall on changing the rules too ("my
hands are tied, yada, yada"). A few more rounds of this and Phil will
be all out of political influence - and this Stone will walk on us.
In negotiations, you have to have leverage and sometimes you have to
use it. Kissing up doesn't get you anywhere until the fact that "we
need each other" has been established and clearly understood. I don't
yet see much sign of that.

I do hope I'm wrong.